Bleed
by Of Ivory and Iron
Summary: Ed has been a State Alchemist for less than a year and has already made a name for himself; but, that's not always a good thing. It's in-progress let you all know when it's done. Full summary inside! Minor language, violence, and blood. I don't own anything, it all belongs to: Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. MBS. Bones. Dentsu. FUNimation Productions, all rights reserved.
1. Prolouge

A/N - Hey! This is my first story so please be gentle with the reviews :) and as I promised, the full summary:

'Edward Elric has been a State Alchemist for less than a year and has already made a name for himself as "the people's hero" but that's not always a good thing. After hearing rumors about this young alchemist a sick minded serial killer who takes special interest in child prodigies begins to "admire" him a little too close for Lieutenant Colonel Mustang's liking, who has been hunting down this nameless murderer for over a year, but what happens if he finds out that the man he's been tracking and his subordinate are in the same City? Will he be able to save his protégé and capture the man who's eluded him for so long before it's too late?'

Minor coarse language, violence, and some blood

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><p>Bleed<p>

Prologue

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><p>October 11th, 1911 East City Train Station 1617 hours<p>

Just another quiet evening in East City, Edward just finished his third mission that week and was looking forward to some well-deserved rest, but not looking forward to the Lieutenant Colonel he had to report to with the news that he had, once again, run out of leads. He and his brother had just gotten off the train and he started to dread each step he took; knowing that he was getting closer to the Eastern Command Center. His brother walked a few steps behind him and watched as he deliberately dragged his feet and couldn't help but to inwardly giggle a little, but in the spirit of being a helpful younger brother, pretended not to know why Edward looked so sour, and gave him a little nudge and asked:

"What's wrong, brother?" while trying to sound confused, just to let his brother vent a little, because he knew how much strain it put on his brother, both physically and mentally. Not only being a State Alchemist, but working under Lieutenant Colonel Mustang no less

His older brother glared at him with suspicion, "What do you mean? You know what's wrong, I have to go back to that bastard Lieutenant Colonel and tell him that we're out of leads AGAIN! Which, of course will just encourage his idea that looking for the philosopher's stone is 'just a waste of the Military's time and money' and then he's gonna laugh in my face, and I'm still gonna have to write a report on it, and IF I'm lucky he won't send me on another mission, and I can get some shut eye..." Alphonse had noticed by this point, even though they hadn't even worked for him for a year that it was almost impossible for Edward to talk about Lieutenant Colonel Mustang without being disrespectful or sarcastic.

"Hehe, just relax brother, I'm sure the Lieutenant Colonel's not as evil as you make him out to be. Just give him a chance." He retorted to optimistically for his brother's liking. If Alphonse could feel he would have shivers running down his spin from his brothers, no doubt demonic glare.

(Sigh) "Why are you so nice Al?" He whined, finally relaxing a little, winking up at his brother, and gently connecting his metal knuckles to his brother's armor as if to knock on a door. "I'm tellin' ya sometimes I think your 'ability' to see everyone for the good in them and not the bad is kind of a curse for me."

"It's not so bad. You should try it sometime."

"Heh, riiight, don't get your hopes up. Now come on, I wanna get this done A.S.A.P, that way if he does want to send me on another mission, I can tell him to blow it out his a-" As he was cut off by his brothers glare. "I can willingly accept it, because he is my superior officer and that's what any good major would do?" He pleaded while cringing back as far as he could without falling over. His brother simply nodded in approval.

After about a half hour walk from the train station they arrived at the Eastern Command Center, where they were not so respectfully welcomed by soldiers who mistook Edward for a lost nine-year-old. He then proceeded to hop the fence and beat the shit out of them, and of course security was called, but thankfully when Roy heard about it , he immediately ran down to the gate.

After pulling everyone apart, he forcefully grabbed Edward by his human arm, Edward let out a slight whimper which sounded much like a kicked puppy and tried to pull away, but only to be pulled harder. Almost being dragged through the hallway's, not only because Mustang was walking at an incredibly fast pace, but also because, even though Edward would never admit it, Roy's legs were longer. Edward noticed that even though it kind of looked like Roy was going to beat the boy, no one even slightly looked over their shoulder, or out of the corner of their eye, which made him even more curious as to what was going on. They had made it to Roy's office were Edward was forced down into the chair across for the raven man's desk.

"Ow, what the hell was that for!" Roy gave him one glare that looked like it could kill a man instantly and Edward immediately lowered his head to the floor, his shoulders went up, and he cupped his hands together and started spinning his thumbs in a circle as any scared child who was in trouble would do.

There was a moment of silence, after which Roy was the first to speak. "Where the hell have you been?" Edward knew the man was crazy, but this time, he honestly had no idea what he what was wrong with him. "Well?" Roy becoming more and more impatient Edward still confused as all hell, he looked quite a bit like a puppy with his huge innocent eyes, and his head tilted to the left.

"Huh? Wait, what are you talking about?"

"I've been trying to get ahold of you for days," recapping his last question. "Where the hell have you been?" There was a small pause as Edward waited for the steam from Roy to die down a bit, but could tell that he had actually been concerned.

"In Taos, where you sent me; Why, Do you not remember?" Another small pause, but this time Roy stayed perfectly quiet and seemed a bit calmer. "Sorry it took so long, but there aren't any roads connected to it so we had to walk for a while, we were gonna take the main roads but there really crowded so we took the secondary roads, we didn't even get to stop in to say hi to teacher." ... "What's this about anyway?"

Roy leaned back in his chair, let out a small sigh and one corner of his mouth went up a little "Nothing, never mind. You and your brother should get some rest I know I've worked you quite a bit this week." He got up to leave and as he passed Edward he patted him on the shoulder. "Tell your brother I say hi."

"Uh, yea... Yeah! Sure thing" At this point he was so utterly confused he couldn't bring himself to form a proper sentence. After Roy left the room he just sat there for a minute trying to gather his thoughts then remembered his brother was still waiting for him. He ran out of the room and right as his foot came out of the door he heard a loud,

"Son of a bitch!" following it was a - just as loud slam on the wall. He slowly tippy toed around a corner where he saw Mustang with a piece of paper in his hand, his other hand curled into a fist, and pressed against the wall, and Lieutenant Hawkeye just a usual - hands folded over one another, her eyes were halfway closed, eyebrows frowned, and with a look of pity and sorrow on her face, and having known Roy for so many years, she knows the things that make him tick and had gotten used to them. So he didn't scare her anymore when he got mad.

Edward trying his best to squint so he could see what was on the paper and scooch closer, tripped on the corner of the wall and fell, quit swiftly to the floor, he let out a quiet "Owww..." and just as he stopped rubbing his sore back and opened his eyes he looked up and saw that Roy had looked over his shoulder at the boy with probably the sadist expression he will ever see on the raven man's face "What's wrong?" Asked the confused blonde

"It's nothing, you should go home." He took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Hey, um, where are you two staying?" Edward sat there wide eyed and blinked a few times trying to think of how that could possibly be relevant.

"At a hotel, it's not far."

"Kay, I want you to stay there. Call me if you need a ride anywhere... Please."

"Sure, I guess. Will someone please tell me want's going on? You're starting to scare me."

"Yeah, I'll tell you everything tomorrow."

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><p>AN - Weeellll what do you think? I suppose I would like honesty, but nice lies a good too! :)


	2. Thing's Better Left Unsaid

A/N - Hi! Chapter two is finally up! Just so you all know, I've decided to post a chapter every Monday (Well, I'll try to anyway). So I can't help but notice that in my summary I said 'summery' not 'summary' and I imagine summery has something to do with summer time as opposed to summary which means: A brief statement or account of the main points of something. -_- So thank you all for that. No really though, thank you all for your kind words and I hope you all enjoy the new chapter! :)

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><p>Bleed<p>

Thing's Better Left Unsaid

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><p>October 11th, 1911 Eastern Command Center 2347 hours<p>

"So you're really going to tell him everything?"

"He needs to know doesn't he? Besides if he knows won't it be easier to make him to cooperate?"

It was as busy a night as ever, Lieutenant Hawkeye with a box full of vanilla folders, and Lieutenant Colonel Mustang with two boxes stacked atop of one another, with the same contents, looking over his shoulder in order to talk to his subordinate, and walking at the fast pace they had both grown a custom to. Finally, making it to his office and set the boxes on the couch, Lieutenant Hawkeye sighed with her hands on her hips staring between Roy and the boxes she had just strained her arms carrying to his office.

"I still don't think you should tell him everything, I mean, you should tell him some of it, but just what he needs to know." she said, completely stressed out and now just staring at the boxes. "What's in these? What are they for?"

Roy, enjoying the moment he had been longing for: getting to sit at his desk, casually looked up at his impatient Lieutenant

"Ah, that is every single file we have on kidnappings of minors over the past five years; well, at least that I could get my hands on, and I don't want to tell him about this just as much as you do, but I'm not allowed not to treat him like a kid, and he doesn't want to be treated like one either, and I can't afford to leave him in the dark about this I mean, depending on where this guy is this could very well endanger his life… And you want me not to tell him?"

"But don't you think you're blurring the lines a little bit? You know he doesn't want to be treated like a child and you've been ordered not to, but Roy you know very well that this problem could be solved by putting him in your custody just for now while your team goes on your man hunt, and you say you don't want to tell him as much as I do. So don't. He doesn't have to know as much as you want to tell him! You know with each and every one of these cases your taking away another piece of his childhood. Not to mention what it's doing to Alphonse! He has to watch while his brother is being forced into adulthood!"

"You don't think I haven't thought of all that stuff? You know I can't do that! He has to do something illegal before I can do that, only the Führer can put him in protective custody the same day and I would have to explain WHY I want Fullmetal in his custody and in case you haven't noticed we don't have that kind of time. Oh! One other small problem with your genius plan is that this is not witness protection plus, HE HASN'T WITNESSED ANYTHING!" He said while gritting his teeth in pure livid rage, which turned into ear bleeding yelling.

There was a moment of silence if anyone else had been in the room they would feel the air getting thicker. No one EVER wanted to be in the same room when Hawkeye and Mustang were arguing. Even though there are three ranks between them she had absolutely no problem yelling at him. If fact, they fought quite often, and more often than not, they would scream themselves horse.

"Look, I know that you're just trying to protect him, but you have to understand that I'm doing everything within my power to do the same, and sometimes things like this just can't be ignored." He tilted his head to the right, cupped his hand around his chin and bit his lip, with nothing short of an extremely worried and defeated look on his face. "I'm not willing to let him or anymore kid's get killed just to preserve his youth." Teeth still gritting together proving all his attempts to calm himself down useless

Riza finally took her hands off her hips and let out a long sigh. "I understand sir, just please... Don't say anything you don't need to."

Roy moved his hands to the center of the desk cupping them together in front of his face, covering his mouth and his chin. "Yeah..."

The next morning Havoc went to pick up Edward, little did Edward know that Havoc had actually been in another room of the same hotel, parked outback, mostly because Roy told him to the other part was because he was bunked in the same dorm as Breda, who had a tendency to snore... loudly... Louder than anything he had ever heard in fact. His snoring was louder than gun fire or a grenade going off three feet away and he thought it about time that he got some sleep, but of course, silly Havoc did not take into account that his boss is clinically insane and didn't hesitate to call whenever he felt something wasn't right.

Havoc did not appreciate this and at one point, came very close to unplugging the phone, but realized that would only earn him a midnight visit from a paranoid Lieutenant Colonel.

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><p>October 12th, 1911 Eastern Command Center 0935 hours<p>

They got to the Eastern Command center after an unusually long drive because Edward had to wake the poor man up a few times, and by the time they got there Havoc had been moved in to the passenger's seat and Edward was driving. He didn't know how to per say, but it wasn't hard to figure out for someone like himself, he did, on the other hand have to sit on some thing's he found in the back, and after they got inside the gate and were walking towards the building, they agreed that Mustang would NEVER know about any of it.

After they made it inside, Edward made sure to drop off the man leaning against his poor little body in the nap room, then went straight the Lieutenant Colonel's office, eager to hear about what was going on the night before.

He walked in only to find his commanding officer unconscious, with a huge stack of papers - all signed, a pen in his right hand, the left holding his head up, and five boxes of... Something around his desk Edward came to the conclusion that he hadn't gone home at all last night, God forbid that at least ONCE in the man's life he did something good for himself and his health instead of constantly doing everything to get higher up in the food chain. Including letting General Hakuro work him, almost literally to death so he figured he'd come back later after the man had gotten some sleep and turned around only to immediately to bump into Major Hughes.

"Oh, hey Ed, how'r you do-"

He was cut off by Edward putting his finger to his lips, signaling him to be quiet and with an equally as quiet "Shhhhhhh"

"Ohhhh, I gotcha." He whispered, then winked once for good measure.

"Hey wait, what are you doing here? I thought you worked in Central?" All in the same hushed tone since they were still standing right outside his door.

"Yeah, I do, but I do get time off and besides, Roy want's my help on a case, and that doesn't happen often."

"What case?"

Maes looked at the door, then Edward again. Winked at him and put his finger in front of his mouth. "Classified"

Edward filled his cheeks with air. "How come I don't get to know I'm his subordinate, AND a Major, your ranks no higher than mine - that's not fair!" This time getting slightly louder and mildly whinny.

Maes put one hand behind Edward's head and the other over his mouth. "Be quiet! Look if I could tell you I would, but I'm allowed to say anything unless Roy say's I can. He might be a little younger than me, but he's still my superior officer and I have to follow his orders. Now are you gonna be quiet?"

He nodded with a muffled "Mmhm."

He slowley took his hand off his mouth. "Kay, thank you."

"Sorry"

"Na, don't worry about it. Where you gonna go have lunch?"

He nodded 'yes' again.

"Alright, well I'll be right there. You go on ahead."

"Kay"

Maes waited at the door for Edward to turn the corner, after he had Maes went in Roy's office, took his coat off and draped it over Roy's shoulder's.

"Night Roy" He whispered and as he was walking out he heard a quiet moan and turned around, only to see Roy waking up. "Heh, morning sleeping beauty" He just moaned again in response, along with a lot of blinking to let his eyes adjust.

"How long was I out?" He asked finally focusing on the silhouette as his vision cleared.

"I honestly don't know, I just got here, I was gonna come in so we could get started on your case and Edward was there. I figured I'd go have lunch with him and kill time 'til you got up." This time he got a yawn and some stretching in response, along with whipping some sleepy tears out of his eyes. "He's gotten bigger hasn't he?"

"Who?"

"Edward"

"What are you talking about? The kid's a freakin' midget"

He pursed his lips to the right side of his face a nodded at the ground with a chuckle. "Nice as ever Roy, so you gonna join us for lunch?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not. I haven't eaten in like threeee days." It was more of an aloud thought than a statement.

" Ahhh is that why you look so skinny? You know you shouldn't let Hakuro work you so hard." He said while Roy finished putting on Maes' coat and walked over to the door. Roy just stared at him with half open eyes and his hands in his pockets.

"You should tell on him." Maes said with an incredibly sarcastic look on his face, and trying to hold back the laughter.

Roy pulled his hand out of the pocket, put it on maes' right cheek, and lazily pushed him away. "Shut up." He whined with a tired chuckle. "Seriously? It's not like he's doing this just for his own enjoyment I happen to have the highest record of putting the bad guy behind bars or in his well-deserved grave and the bastard needs one of the two. Besides, what am I supposed to say...?'Bradley, Hakuro's working me too hard, I'm tired and hungry?'" He said in an incredibly childlike whining voice and pretended to stomp his feet.

Maes stared at him for a minute. "Yes, just like that. Also... You're wearing my coat." He said in a dramatic voice which came off sounding more like it was from a soap opera.

"Shut up! You put it on me." He said pushing him away again, this time with a laughter so loud it echoed through the hallways

Maes walked back over to Roy and through his arm over Roy's shoulder and pulled him closer. "In all seriousness Roy something has to be done about this, a little birdie told me you haven't been going home, or if you have you've been going home very late and coming in very early and you haven't been eating for more than three days."

Feeling he was getting too close to the sensitive area, Roy mumbled to himself: "Stupid investigations department." and scooched away only to be pulled in again. "What is this? An intervention, look I told you he's not doing it for personal enjoyment it's not his fault I don't have personal time besides that's what coffee's for, I need to be on this case… And I also need your help so can we please get back on topic?"

"It's no substitute for sleep and if you don't want to talk to him I will."

"No, don't do that. It's fine really it's not even that big a deal, besides, I have to kiss ass if I want to get closer to the higher ups anyway, and if that means losing a little sleep and losing a couple pounds in order to catch the bad guy AND get promoted, I don' mind killing two birds with one stone." He argued all the while making sure not to make eye contact with Maes.

"But what good is it gonna do you to get closer to them if by the time you could have been Führer, Hakuro has worked you quite literally to death? Just promise me you'll talk to him?"

"And say what!"

"I don't know. Look, just talk to him sometime this week-"

"What! This week, I have a case to work on!"

"Okay fine, not this week... sometime this month, or I will. Kapeesh? It's great that you have your goal and are willing to do almost anything to get there, just, please keep it at _almost_ anything."

"Aggghhh, fine, I guess."

"Thank you. Oh! Also, eat more."

"Agh, but then I'll lose my feminine figure" He said in the same childlike whiny voice as before.

Maes just gave him a look of 'I cannot believe you just said that.' "Yeah, okay." Roy mumbled, finding it a little hard to believe he said that himself.

After a rather quiet walk considering how they usually were around each other, they made it to the lunch room where Edward had finished his meal, save for the vegetables and the milk that he didn't want but the man put on his tray anyway, and he was leaning back, balancing on one leg of the chair with his foot rocking him back and forth on the table.

"Eat you're freakin' vegetables." Roy ordered with a, less than pleased look on his face as they walked up.

"But I already ate most of 'em."

"And get your foot off the table, don't you have any manners?" Roy, again, ordered ignoring Edward's self-defensive statement.

"Yes..." He mumbled

The two realized that although they were there to talk to Edward, they were also there to get lunch and turned toward the line. As they were walking back over to the table they were both watching Edward thinking of what they were going to tell him, he had taken his foot of the table and stared at his vegetables while pushing them around with the fork.

"So what all do you deem worthy of telling him about what's going on?"

"I don't know." It whined out of his lips like they had been sewn shut. "I mean, it's like any bit of it isn't rated R."

"Yeah but you do know that if you don't tell him something much worse could happen than a couple gory images in his head, right?"

They stopped talking when they figured they were within ear shot and by the same token, when Edward thought he was within eye sight he toke a bight of his vegetables. They sat down right across from him and looked at each other like two nervous parents about to give their child sex ed, then looked back to him and said simultaneously

"We have to tell you something."

Edward sat there for a minute staring between the two. "What are you guys secretly gay? Hey your secrets safe with me you know, 'don't ask, don't tell'" He said with an evil and sadistic smile on his face.

"Shut up, he's my friend, there is a difference!" Roy said starting to reach across the table at Edward's neck.

"What he means to say is that... Uh, Roy sit down!" What Edward didn't know was that Roy was quite the homophobic due to some... Past experiences and did not appreciate his last comment more than Edward would ever know. After Maes got Roy to sit back down in his chair and made sure that he wasn't going to lunge at the boy again he continued.

"Anyway," He started looking between the two, hoping that the tension will ease just a little. "What we need to talk to you about is kind of serious so if you could bear with us that would be great..." Feeling that Edward wasn't listening or taking it seriously enough he added: "And by that I mean: what we want to talk to you about could be life threatening, so shut up and listen." Edward immediately sat up straight and his eyes got perky.

It had been an hour since Roy and Maes had started explaining things and everyone but them had left and moved on with their day... But Edward wouldn't be doing that... He sat there after they finished with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"Shit." He muttered in between some heavy breathing, which almost turned into hyperventilating.

"It's not that bad." Edward gave Maes this look of 'Are you freaking kidding me? It's worse than that bad! I can't believe you just said that!'

"Okay so maybe it is bu-"

Roy cut him off. "What he's trying to say is that it's okay because I've already set up a team just for you and their going to be watching over you night and day to make sure nothing happens, and they're going to follow you everywhere you go, but that does mean that you can't run off by yourself you have to check in with me before you do anything. OK?"

Edward just sat there for a minute staring at Roy almost as though for comfort. "Okay?"

"Yeah... Right" There was a small silence where all that could be heard was Edward's breathing and his heart beating in his throat while he thought about everything he had just been told. "Wait, so you're telling me that there's some psycho out there who wants to do God knows what to me, he already know my name and that I'm in East City, and you want me to stay here and act all calm while he comes to kill me!" At the beginning of his rant it was more of a disbelieving chuckle, but turned into sheer panic. He then stood up so fast out of his chair flew backwards. Roy and Maes stood up, almost immediately after.

"Edward just calm down, do you honestly think that I would have waited to tell you if I thought that you were in danger? I'm really close to finishing this case I'm just one step behind him. You'll be fi-"

"NO! Don't you dare tell me I'm gonna be fine, Do you even know anything about him! 'Cause I was thinking before you try to tell me to calm down, you could give me some reassurance that you have anything under control!" He yelled so loud everyone who was walking by couldn't help but to stop and watch.

"Do you know anything about him...? Apart from the fact that he's a serial killing psycho, who likes to torture and kill his victim's slowly and when you find the bodies their heads are split open and certain thing are missing like, their brains! I mean, you wouldn't happen to know why that is would you mister 'one step behind him'?"

Roy looked into his golden, panicked eyes with remorse "... No..."

"That's what I thought..." He stayed silent for a moment, realizing that what the Lieutenant Colonel was offering was probably his only option at life. "… So if I said yes to this... I-I mean, what do you want me to do?"

Roy and Maes looked at each other accompanied with a very heavy sigh of relief. "Just stay home, I'll send th-"

"Wait, can I... Uh, can I see my teacher? I told Al we were gonna go back and see her if you didn't send me on another mission. I promise I won't tell her anything."

They looked at each other again, then back at Edward. "Can you just wait one more day? I just want to confirm the last town he hit, if it's far enough then yeah."

"Why does that matter?"

"Another one of his strange fetishes is that he look's in every City in alphabetical order no matter what Area and last I heard he was somewhere in the North Area, just let me make sure of it and out two can go. Alright"

"Okay, thanks..."

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><p>AN - Thanks for waiting, I'm really happy with the way this Chapter turned out; 'Til the next one, please, review & if you're feeling generous add to alert/favorites :) thanks, hope to keep it comin'


	3. Back In Dublith

A/N - OHMYGODOHMYGOD OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD! I am so sorry this took so long,I hope it's worth it, this has been like the worst month and a half of my life! & just so you all know, I realized about half way through the chapter that this story is supposed to take place when Edward's twelve & their going to see their teacher even though they tried to avoid her 'cause they didn't want her to know about the taboo, etc. so please just ignore that flaw & enjoy. :|

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><p>Bleed Chapter 3:<p>

Back In Dublith

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><p>October 13th, 1911 Eastern Command Center 0927 hours<p>

Complete and utter silence filled the room save for the man one the phone. "Yeah, I appreciate it," another small silence while whomever was on the other end of the line spoke. "Thanks for your time."

He hung up phone with a slightly heavy but, relived sigh coming from the man standing behind the desk. "Alright you two can go."

"Yeah!" Edward jumped up and high fived his brother.

"Hey! Don't forget you don't get to do anything without my or Maes' consent, got it." Edward was hardly listening he was still bouncing off the walls in excitement. "Hey... HEY!" Roy snapped at him, for those two seconds a thick silence filled the room. "Do you think this is a joke!"

"...No... I'm sorry" Edward said rubbing the back of his neck and making sure not once to make eye contact with him because, he, unlike Riza had not gotten used to it when the raven man was angry.

Roy noticing that both Edward and Alphonse had lowered their heads to the floor like two small children who had wet the bed. Roy looked at them, then over at Maes who mouthed him to 'chill the hell out' and pointed with his eyes over at the two boys. "No... It's not your fault, I just... I'm sorry. I get that you're both excited and that's fine! I-I just overreacted."

Edward just looked up at him with an innocent childlike forgiving look in his eye and a slight smirk, shrugged his shoulders and said: "You don't have to apologize, I get it, I should've been listening… I suppose." Now it was just his usual evil little Edward smirk.

Roy looked down at his desk and a pleasantly happy smirk crept across his face as he let out a small chuckle, then looked back up at the two.

"You guys should start packing" The two looked at each other and took a deep breath in with equally as big smiles (Well, Edward smiled) then back at the raven man and simultaneously saluted and said: "Yes sir!" then ran out of the room. Almost immediately after, Mustang fell back in his chair and let out a-almost as big as Edward's smile-sigh, he wanted to say something, but didn't know how, he opened his mouth a few times while looking at Maes but nothing really came out, well, nothing coherent anyway.

He looked at Maes with this zombie like and very confused look on his face, which Maes thought to himself for some reason that he looked somewhat like a cod fish. If ever he had needed some sort of guidance it was now. Maes just looked back at him with a strangely warm, fatherly smile that he was so good at and seemed to take advantage of seeing how he was, if fact, a father, and Roy's zombie/confused face turned into that of a small smile.

"You wanna go see 'em off?"

"Yes!" Roy yelled with a strange amount of enthusiasm and leapt out of his chair almost before Maes had finished his sentence and headed straight for the door. By the time Hughes realized what was going on Roy already had one sleeve of his coat on and one foot out the door. "Come on, Hughes!" He said like a whining child ready to go to the park on a Saturday morning.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming."

East City Train Station 1102 hours

A short while later they all arrived at the train station. Edward and Alphonse were already in the train and Roy and Maes stood outside the window.

"So you guys called her right? She knows you're coming?"

"Yeah, she knows. I told her what train we're taking so she knows when we'll be getting in."

"Alright well, we'll see you two later!"

Roy watched as Hughes started to walk away. "Remember, listen to your body guards, they're there for a reason-" Maes came back over and started pulling Roy away from the train, but he just grabbed onto the window sill "Al make sure your brother doesn't do anything stupid... Ah!"

"Uh, right, I mean, yes sir!" Edward meanwhile was paying no mind to the man latched on to the window. "Yeah so you guys should probably go now. Bye" He said as he started peeling Roy's fingers off with his notorious evil smirk "You stupid little brat-stop it!" Edward started twitching and deliberately bent one of Roy's fingers backwards. "What did you call me?" He hissed. During Roy's and Edward's stare-down of death, Maes and Alphonse looked at each other as if to say ' Okay, that's enough'

"Okay Roy, time to go" He said, this time rather forcefully pulling him off the train. "He's right brother- the trains about to leave" Maes was trying the best he could to make Roy walk away from the train - with his hands clasped around Roy's upper arms, almost kicking Roy's ankles at the slow pace that he was going.

"I expect you to call me after you get there, it's not that I don't trust your teacher, BUTI'LLBEDAMNEDIFYOUTWODI-!" Maes through one hand over his mouth.

"Could you please not scream stuff like that? And I'm fairly certain they can't hear you over the trains whistle..."

* * *

><p>Eastern Command Center 1154 hours<p>

"Agh! I can't believe I did that!" Roy groaned in self-loathing with his left hand on his hip and his right slapped and rubbing against his forehead while pacing back and forth frantically in his office.

Maes - on the other hand was leaning back in Roy's chair folding a report Roy had written concerning the training of the staff from Southern Headquarters which was to be sent to General Hakuro tomorrow but now needs to be rewritten since its being made into a little airplane. And while not once looking up at him believing that Roy was trying to distract him from making his project. "What'd you do again?"

"I seem to have this problem that no other solider I've ever met has."

"Reeeaaly and what's that?" He apathetically asked while his head was still facing in the direction of his paper airplane but he glanced up at the - clearly stressed out man pacing back and forth, which - not to be rude, it was starting to get on his nerves. He stopped his pacing for a moment right in front of his desk as so he could look at Hughes while he spoke. However the man he was being polite in order to talk to was paying him no mind at all, but he didn't seem to care. "I can't seem to tell the difference between trained soldiers who should be able to take it like men when I yell at them and children who shouldn't have to! Ha, isn't that great?"

"Trust me, Roy they didn't see it as you treating them like soldiers, they saw it as you being concerned for their health. That's all. But your right you should like take a class on that, like go to anger management or something, 'cause you gotta stop yelling at kid's man. It scares them and you make 'em cry." Roy just let out a long heavy sigh and started eyeballing his chair.

"Do you want to sit down?"

"Yes" He mumbled timidly. Roy was now sitting in his chair and Maes sat quietly on his desk, swinging his dangling his feet and proudly putting the finishing touches on his airplane.

"I suck when it comes to kids."

"Yeah you do." He retorted filled with a mocking chuckle. Roy sat there for a minute glaring at Maes with the look of 'you were supposed give me some sort of reassurance... That sucked'. Maes just continued with his plane and when he was finished, through it at Roy's head.

"Real mature..."

* * *

><p>East city Train to Dublith 1343 hours<p>

Edward and Alphonse were enjoying the train car they got all to themselves, well except for - of course the squad of soldiers the Lieutenant Colonel sent with them, but they didn't much care about that 'cause for the most part, they were pretty quiet.

Edward was sitting on the bench across from Alphonse, hands folded behind his head, back sliding down onto the part that was meant for his butt and his legs hanging between the two benches with his feet crossed over one another right next to Al, who much unlike his brother was sitting in a civilized manner - hands together on his lap and back straight. But Edward couldn't help but to notice Alphonse's tapping foot.

"How much longer?" Alphonse grumbled starting to get impatient.

"Wow Al, didn't expect that from 'Mr. Patient.'" Edward tiredly responded with one eye open as he WAS trying to get some sleep.

"I just wanna see teacher, I miss her." He began to whine and at that moment Edward remembered that Alphonse, unlike himself had a tendency to cling to their teacher because she reminded him of their mother... Edward, on the other hand didn't let himself do that because he didn't want to be able to think of anyone else like that, he was too afraid he'd forget about her.

"Don't worry Al it's just one more hour." His older brother instincts kicked in as he sat up straight and slightly against his will got this protective and almost worried sound in his voice which he rather questioned himself. Since he, like most big brothers couldn't stand to see his little brother sad.

"Don't you wanna see her too brother?" Edward was surprised and his eyes opened wide seeing how what his brother had just asked him was the last thing he was expecting to hear.

"Uh, yeah-yeah Al of course I do." He answered as he conjured up an incredibly blissful and reassuring smile.

After the last excruciatingly long hour of their train, they arrived and ran out to greet their teacher, or so they tried to. There had to be six men in front and six in back which meant when Edward tried to run out two of them grabbed his arms and pulled him back. Of course it seemed like they were just trying to inconvenience him now, Alphonse got to run out but he isn't the target. So Ed got to walk out at their pace which seemed slow since he wanted to be running.

The original plan was that Izumi and Sig were going to wait at the train station and drive Ed and Al back to their house but unfortunately, that didn't happen either. They got to drive Al to the house but Edward got to ride in a military car full of soldiers, which irritated his very soul... And it wasn't even the fact that it was the military that bothered him, he works for the military he had to get over his hatred for them, it was just the fact that he missed his teacher too, even though all she did was through him around and yell at him. She only through him when they were sparing and she yelled at him because she wanted him to always remember that he is Al's older brother and whether or not Al had that seemingly immortal body or not it's Edward's job to protect him, and there were several other reasons but none that Edward had enough time to think about before they made it to the Curits' residence.

Alphonse, Izumi, and Sig were already inside and sitting at the dinner table talking when they saw six men in army uniforms march into their house.

"Excuse me officers can I help you?" Izumi said standing up ready to kick them out.

"No ma'am, we're here under orders."

"Orders? From who?"

The soldier opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by- "Hey, uh! Excuse me, hi teacher. Ah!" He tried to explain as he tripped over the soldier's ankle and fell, face first to the floor.

"Edward, what's going on?" She impatiently asked with her arms folded across her chest and eyebrow raised

"What...? Oh this? This is nothi-" Pleaded the poor boy starting to stand up while rubbing his sore cheek

Izumi cut him off simply by closing her eyes and holding out one finger. "Can I speak with you? Privately"

Edward finished standing up with his head lowered to the ground the entire time and timidly answered. "Yes ma'am." They walked to the other room while Al, Sig, and the rest of the soldier's just watched all almost anxious to hear what was going to happen to Ed. Edward quietly walked into the room and sat down in the chair across from the door and after Izumi had closed it, turned the light on and pulled up a chair only about two feet away from Ed.

"So perhaps you'd like to enlighten me on why my house has been invaded by soldiers?"

"Right, um see the thing is-"

"Just get to the point"

"Okay, um, just promise not to get mad?" After looking at the boys worried and vaguely pathetic face she let out a long and heavy sigh with her eyes closed then she slapped her hands on her knees and stood up.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, but I can promise I'll try." She said calmly as she ran her fingers through his hair then walked over to the door and slammed her fist against it as hard as she could, without knocking it down of course. Which wouldn't have effected Al if he had been expecting it and at the same time Ed and Izumi heard a loud "OW!" on the other side of the door and Izumi stuck her head out and looked at her husband laying on the ground holding his ear.

"Darling, if it's not too much trouble could you please try to be an example, other than a distraction?" She didn't wait for an answer, because she was one of those people who believed that they shouldn't be questioned... Ever, but liked the fact that Sig did from time to time, but now was not one of those times she wanted to be challenged and answered herself with: "Thanks" And went back in the room. "You were saying." Ed stopped staring at the door and tried to focus on his teacher but with almost no effort it wasn't doing much. "Edward!"

"Huh? Oh sorry teacher. Well apparently or at least from what Mustang told me there's some psycho who enjoys kidnapping, torturing, murdering, and dissecting his victims and all of his victims are from the approximate ages of ten to eighteen and there also, um... Child prodigies... Heh, so he sent these guys with me." He said pointing at the door. "Just for you know... Precautionary measures"

"And when were you planning on telling me?" She said as he foot starting thumping on the floor and her arms almost instantly crossed over her chest again as she glared at him.

Realizing this was probably the dumbest thing he's ever done he tried to whip out an excuse. "Teacher look I'm really sorry but he knew I was in East City so I had to come and besides Al and I wanted to visit anyway, and Mustang told me about this like yesterday and I didn't think it was something I should tell you over the phone."

"Wow, you've never been able to come up with one that fast before."

"Heh." Edward knowing by the tone in her voice she wasn't praising him about his little trick.

"Somehow I get the feeling you pick up these - less than honest tricks from your commanding officer? From what I've heard he's not that good of an example, now I have proof." Edward just lowered his head like he had so many times before as he heard her getting closer and almost curled up into a ball, but instead of the slap upside the head he was expecting. She kneeled down next to him, wrapped one arm around his back and gently rested her other hand on the back of his head and said: "I'm glad you're alright." Nothing more...

It had been three hours since their little conversation, Sig and Izumi were both asleep, Edward and Alphonse were in their room, Ed was pretending to be asleep, even Al didn't know he was awake, and there were two soldiers taking shifts outside his door. Edward laid there occupying his mind by reciting chemicals and elements in his head, just waiting… Alphonse decided to go into the other room to listen to the radio as to not disturb his brother.

He kept one eye open to watch his brother leave and waited until he couldn't hear his footsteps anymore then as quietly as he could, leapt out of his bed, opened the window, and transmuted a rope, tied it around some inanimate objects and repelled himself down the side of the building but much to his dismay, Al did in fact know that he was awake and would do something like this and was waiting for him around the corner at the bottom.

As soon as Al heard his feet hit the ground he walked around the corner and watched as his unknowing brother started removing the rope from his waist, so Al decided to make his presence known. "Brother what are you doing?" Grated the less-than-amused younger brother, while crossing his arms over one another

"AH! Oh, Al I didn't see you there, what… Are you doing out here?" Ed responded while trying to sound astute and make small talk and not sound suspicious... It was not working.

"I asked first!" Al argued getting louder, this time and thumping his foot on the ground as to subtlety alert the guards.

"Okay! Okay, fine I just wanted to go for a walk, I haven't been alone since we got here, or even since before we left East, I'm sorry but I don't need those guys hovering over me night and day, I can take care of myself. Now can you please be quiet?"

Alphonse, actually feeling sorry for his brother decided to play along. "Alright... But I'm coming with you. You know I'm not gonna be able to relax unless I do."

"Heh, yeah, sure"

So they left, completely ignoring orders. They got to see parts of Dublith they'd never seen before. Al convinced Ed to give a homeless man some money which Edward knew he would just go spend on booze, they met some very nice people and played hide and go seek with some kids which of course made Al very happy and Ed was just excited at the thought of being able to act like a kid, It was the first time in quite a while...

After all their running around Ed decided to stop in at a nearby tavern and get something to drink. They walked in only to be very surprised with a: "Hey, come on in!" from the large man behind the counter. It was easily the happiest tavern they'd ever been in, even though it was filled with smoke and cussing it seemed... Cheerful not to mention that any and everyone who turned around to look at them didn't in the slightest look angry or bitter or like they were going to start a fight.

From the ages of three or two for Alphonse up until now their lives had been pretty depressing, so they didn't know what to do with all these people who just seemed so happy. They tried not to seem pessimistic but all that laughter was confusing. Everyone was smiling and throwing their arms around one another's shoulders and they all seemed pretty excited to meet the new kids who nobody recognized.

Edward tried to smile but it wasn't very convincing, it was more of a nervous and anxious smile. They slowly walked to the counter where they were greeted with the sound of more laughter and a man came up between the two young alchemists and through his arm around each of the shoulders, of course Edward had to be sitting down on the stool in front of the bar for this otherwise it would be virtually impossible. "Hey there, you boys don't look like you're from around here, why don't I buy you a drink?" 'Politely' asked the large man with the fat cigar hanging out of his mouth.

"Oh no thank you sir, I'm not thirsty." Al said while trying not to make it seem suspicious that he was walking around in a suit of armor and in fact wasn't really capable of drinking anything.

"I'd take you up on that offer but that depends, do you mean water or alcohol?" Edward, not caring how it sounded, asked with a slightly uncomfortable look with one eyebrow raised as he gazed up at the man.

"Well" He started as he took the cigar out of his mouth and of course had to have it in the hand that was around Ed's shoulder. "That all depends." He said tightening his right arm, pulling Edward closer and getting his face a little too close to Edward's for his liking. "Do you want alcohol? Bwahahahahahaha!"

Right as he finished and was drowning everyone else out with his laughter the bar tender walked out from the back with a tray of drinks in one hand and three full mugs of beer in the other and immediately stopped after he saw just how uncomfortable the two boys looked.

"Hey, Daniel Would you leave those kid's alone, jeez, you're wasted again. I told you guys not to let him drink too much. Would somebody take him home?" Edward and Alphonse looked up at the man who had welcomed them in earlier but they hadn't paid much attention to, he, like the man harassing them was tall, he had quite a muscular build but it was easy enough to know why, not only was he the owner of the bar but it didn't look like he had any employees which meant he was also the bouncer, he had a cigarette dangling out of the left corner of his mouth and it was pretty clear that the man had been smoking for years by the sound of his voice, but regardless of his habits, he was known as a pretty nice guy.

"Sorry 'bout that boy's." The bar tender apologized as he passed them with the tray.

"Oh no that's alright. He was just trying to be friendly, right brother."

Edward wasn't paying attention but all the same, he didn't think so, no, he was trying to think of a way he could get the smell of cigar smoke out of his clothes without his teacher finding out. "Yeah, right, whatever, look can I just get something to drink? That's why I came in here and I'll be damned if I get the pleasure of dying from second hand smoking and get in trouble with my teacher all for one lousy drink I didn't get." He complained while taking off his coat hopefully to smell less like smoke.

"Hehehe, yeah, alright, but this ones on the house as an apology from that guy" He said raising a glass to the corner where two men were taking Daniel home.

"Thanks but you don't have to do that." Edward said pulling out his wallet.

"No, no, I insist, it's the least I can do."

"Alright well, thanks, if you insist." He pretended to be polite but for a twelve-year-old, he knew how the world worked pretty well, he also knew if he acted modest enough and as though he just couldn't accept, he could get the most expensive drink or meal on the menu, unfortunately he wasn't hungry and the most expensive drink was Chivas which he couldn't, nor did he want to drink.

"Brother, you can't take that!"

"Why not? It's just water, besides you heard the man, he insists." And after he had his drink, he couldn't help but to notice a picture of a quite gorgeous and quite pregnant woman and had to ask: "How far along is she?"

"Hm? Oh her, that's my wife, her names Sheila, and shes seven months. Oh, by the way, my names Bryan" He said with the smile that belongs only to an expecting father.

"Oh, I'm Edward and this is my little brother, Alphonse, congratulations." He didn't much care about the free drink anymore, since he was an alchemist which entailed: scientist, he was constantly fascinated by things others would call miracles but he would rather explain with science and besides, his night ended with laughter and playing cards with some of the nicest people he'd ever met.

* * *

><p>AN - Hope you all liked it & I will try again (& probably fail) to post more chapters closer together & I also know something actually interesting was supposed to happen but it really does in the next chapter, I've already got it figured out. :)


	4. Here With You

A/N - Hey, sorry this (also) took so long but I hope you guys enjoy it. Over what has passed in the winter I have been watching crime/suspense movies and have begun to read Stephen King books to help make it… Scar-i-er…? I guess. I don't know, it probably won't work and you may all feel free to mock me for my feeble attempts later, but for now, please enjoy, rate & review! XD

* * *

><p>Bleed<p>

Here With You

* * *

><p>October 14th, 1911 Southern Area, Dublith: Curtis Residence 1515 hours<p>

It was the next morning and somehow, Edward was still in one piece. He awoke to the sound of bells ringing from people entering and exiting the store and another sound which he found slightly more irritating then the others, it was a cleaver slamming against a cutting board, and the orders being barked back and forth from Sig and Izumi didn't help him sleep one bit, but he didn't really care about what was going on down stairs, he just groaned, pulled the covers over his head, and tried to fall back asleep, but sadly that wasn't going to happen, because amongst all the yelling Edward heard one all too familiar voice telling someone to go wake him up.

He heard the footsteps, the "Sir" from the soldiers standing beside his door, and the knocking on the door, which was opened shortly after, completely not of his own approval, but he had to, since the only response he had gotten when he knocked was: "Mmmmmmmm..." But since _someone_ who was supposed to be awake hours ago had pulled the covers over his head, he wasn't expecting thee incredibly cold hand that grabbed his shoulder and started shaking him.

"Holy shit!" Edward through the covers off and jumped up against the wall

"Whoa! Brother calm down!" Alphonse much like his brother had jumped back at least two feet after the scream, and of course because it sounded like someone was attacking Ed, twelve soldiers came rushing in like no bodies business, guns blazing, which didn't help... At all... After the two boys had stopped screaming from the sight of the guns being waved around, they started yelling at each other. "Are you aware of just how freakin' cold your hands are? I feel like I just jumped in the freaking ocean! And just so you know-it's not something I look forward to waking up to."

"Jeez brother, sorry, but I wouldn't have to wake you up all the time if you would just go to bed and get up at a reasonable hour!"

And of course, the _only_ thing that would make this any better would be if the butcher woman came in to spread fear, even in the soldiers.

"What the hell's going on in here? I just told you to wake him up!" Screamed the woman who looked like she was mentally unstable enough to and certainly well-equipped enough, to kill someone... And so the screaming continued. It took longer than expected, but then again everyone had just hopped it would be over, everyone had everything explained to them and all seemed right with the world, business was as usual, the soldiers were standing their posts, and Edward and Alphonse went down stairs to have some breakfast.

"What if he figures it out before you're finished?"

"He won't… Call him. It's too late now anyway… He won't make it in time." Answered the tall, shadowy figure looming by the window staring at his prey like a tiger ready to pounce…

* * *

><p>Eastern Command Center 1545 hours<p>

*Ring... ring… ring… click*

"Colonel Mustang speaking"

"Ooo, a promotion, congratulations" The man hissed.

"Who is this?"

"Mustang I'm hurt, I would think that you would remember the sound of my voice, we've spoken quite a bit lately about that case of yours."

"Oh, Adam, what is it? Have you gotten any news?" He asked readying a pen and paper.

"Well something like that. See I may have been, somewhat… Untruthful with you before and _I just couldn't bear it anymore_, so I have to tell you. He's not in the Northern Area… Actually, he hasn't been for quite some time now, in fact he's the complete opposite, I'll give you a hint; it starts with a D… I'll let you figure out the rest."

Roy's eyes widened as he put the pieces together, he immediately stood up from his chair and shoved all his paperwork off his desk to revel the map beneath it and looked at the Southern Area with a growing rage, as the man over the phone indulged in the lividity he could feel coming from Roy.

"You bastard!**" **He barked at the man on the other end of the line, alarming everyone in the office.

"Now, now Roy, no need to get so mad, you should be thanking me, this way you'll actually get to find the body, besides, it's not my fault you couldn't find him on your own, I was simply offering my services."

"God damn you!" He uttered behind gritting teeth.

"Roy I don't see why you're so angry-"

"**Shut up! And listen, because I have something important to tell you; I swear, on my life, I'm going to fine you, and I am going to kill you. So you can be expecting a visit from me **_**very**_** soon, count on it."**

His subordinates stared at the furious time bomb that was their Commander in complete shock and waited for him to hang up the phone and begin barking orders.

"Heh, not soon enough I'm afraid, but I look forward to it." He chuckled and hung up before Roy could say anything else.

Roy hung up the phone and let out one exasperated sigh. "Havoc, go get Hughes and meet us at the train station, everyone else come with me. We're going to Dublith."

* * *

><p>Southern Area, Dublith: Curtis Residence 1600 hours<p>

"Hey Al, wanna go back to that tavern?" He weaseled while trying to make it sound innocent even though it was completely against his orders.

"What brother, are you insane? What if we get caught?" Al argued.

"We didn't get caught last night."

"But it was just that,** night**, and everyone was asleep, we didn't have to worry about people seeing us who were just going about their day."

"Fine, whatever, stay here, I don't care, but I'm going back and I don't wanna be followed by those freaks."

"Hmmm, okay fine, you know I can't stand it when you go somewhere without me. But brother, shouldn't we at least tell teacher? She won't tell them, will she? She knows we can take care of ourselves."

"Yeah, she does, but she still might tell 'em besides she's got enough work to do with the shop, I don't wanna take her mind off it, she might cut her finger off or something." He said with a joking smile as he was already half way out the window.

"Brother that's not funny!" While Al was in the middle of his little fit Edward put a finger in front of his mouth and signaled him to be quiet.

"Oh! Sorry." They both climbed down the wall, making as little noise as possible, they made it to the bar and couldn't help but notice it wasn't nearly as lively or as loud as the night before, but that's just the way bars worked, most of the regulars came at night that way they can have their hangovers during the day and come back again the next night. The only thing that bothered Edward was that there was a different bar tender. He, unlike the man the night before was slender, the apron didn't quite fit him, and he didn't look like he took very good care of himself, even in comparison to the last man who almost always had a cigarette in his mouth. He had five o'clock shadow and short, dirty blonde, messy hair, but the only thing about him that no one dare mentioned was the fact that he was at least 6'2" and had rather muscular arms. Well, at least for a man as skinny as he was and he always looked like he wanted to hit something, hence the silence.

"Hey uh, where's Bryan?" Edward asked.

"Oh, he's tacking the day off, the wife's in labor. I'm his brother, the names Abdeil." He said as he was finishing drying a cup then reached out his arm to shake the young man's hand.

Edward shook his hand but wasn't buying it, and it was clearly expressed on his face. "But he said she was only seven months."

"Oh yeah I know, he's been saying that for the last two months, he's just a little scared about finally bein' a baby daddy, that's all." Even Edward had to admit, even though he didn't really want to, the man was quite convincing.

"Alright, well congrats on being an uncle." He said to try to seem friendly but really he was just trying to get the man to falter since he couldn't shake this unnerving feeling the man gave him, no matter who he said he was.

"Thanks, so you boys want something to drink?"

Al had just gotten used to saying he wasn't thirsty and said just that.

"Yeah thanks, I'll take some water."

"Of course, be right back." He said 'thanks' but found it difficult to focus on him while trying to keep a conversation with others, Alphonse and some men who had recognized them from the night before had already started to get him to relax. While they weren't looking the man pulled a curtain across the doorway, walked into a back room, went into a drawer and pulled out a syringe, stabbed it in through the cap and emptied it out into the bottle of water, put his finger over the small hole and shook it. Then poured it into a glass of ice and took it to Edward.

"Here you go Mr. - I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Oh Edward - Edward Elric" He was trying to conger up a friendly smile but it wasn't working very well.

"Ahh, well very nice to meet you Edward Elric"

"Yeah, you too" Edward still couldn't bring himself to honestly smile at the man no matter how hard he tried and he couldn't figure out why…

After an hour everyone had completely settled in and they were sitting at three collective tables and talking back and forth about the most random thing's there were to talk about but Ed and Al were still enjoying themselves since it was quite a bit of fun talking to drunken men.

Abdeil decided to join them and interject a few random conversations of his own and managed to pick a few that intrigued both Edward's scientific mind and sense of adventure.

"Did you kids ever hear about that haunted factory at the other side of town? They say anyone who's ever gone in there is never seen again, and if you ever get close to the building you can hear all the dead souls begging to be saved, wondering around - waiting for someone to get close enough so they can use their body as a host and be free again - I've never been there, for obvious reasons - of course. I unlike my brother am a little superstitious."

"You honestly believe in that crap? It's probably just some kids playing pranks on everyone. Seriously have you ever been close enough to even hear these - 'dead souls'? It's a bunch of B.S." It was close to the response he was expecting but he underestimated Edward's ability to shut down someone's theory about, well, anything, if he thought it was bologna so it did make him flinch a little.

"Brother, don't be like that."

"No, no, it's fine I can see your brothers much like my own. But my brothers never actually been man enough to go there himself, would you like to prove to me that what you believe holds more water than what I do?"

The only thing that concerned everybody was that - if Abdeil was right and Edward got hurt, he would be completely responsible for putting a twelve-year-old in harms way, no matter how ludicrous it all sounded but that wasn't about to make Edward back down. He had caught himself in a stare-down which he won easily with his cocky attitude and his even cockier smirk.

"Yeah, I would." His sly retort shot out of his mouth like a bullet out of a _well-_cared for gun.

So they left for the abandoned factory, it was just Abdeil, Edward, and Alphonse. They made it out front and Edward was the only one to go within twenty feet of it and was less than impressed by the lack of 'ghost whispers', until Alphonse came timidly up beside him.

"Br-brother what if you get eaten or get your head chopped off or something?"

"Relax Al, I've already got this in the bag, listen, do you hear any ghosts? This is just another rumor made up by parents to scare their kids into staying away from factories with rusty and broken down machinery and from the looks of it, I'd say it's working, but unfortunately it won't keep me out. I'm gonna prove everyone wrong 'cause quite frankly I don't get why parents have to scare the hell outta their kids to keep 'em from doing stupid stuff." He started walking off after he finished.

"If only you did brother..." He mumbled quietly to himself. "Hey wait! Brother I'm going in too!"

"I thought you were too scared?" Edward said crossing his arms with one eyebrow raised in sheer disbelief.

"Brother we've talked about this, I'm only gonna be more scared if I let you go in by yourself."

"You are aware that I'M YOUR older brother and you don't have to come in just to protect me, I'll be fine. Besides even if I come out with some minor scrapes, I'll live plus if you want reassurance I can personally guarantee you right now even if I come out scratched up as all hell it won't be from any ghosts... You still wanna come?"

It took him a minute, and for Edward, an agonizing minute at that, in that minute he could've been proving hundreds of people wrong and few things brought him greater pleasure, but instead he waited for his brother to choose, who finally decided.

"I'm coming in."

"Alright, you want me to hold your hand? Don't answer that. Also bear in mind I can't be held responsible if I get tempted to jump out from around a corner scare the shit outta you." The second he finished he started casually walking in as though it was any ordinary building.

"Wait, brother, what? What was that last part? Brother that's not funny! What'd you say!"

Edward just turned his head at his brother, chuckled to himself but was quiet audible and ran inside knowing Al would follow close behind.

"Wait brother, slow down! Wait for me!"

After the boys had gone inside the pitch blackness that was the factory sealed off by caution tape, a sadistic smile came over Abdeil's face and he began to slowly walk in behind them, holding one hand against another behind his back, gently swaying as he walked in at a relaxed pace and began to whistle. Edward who had almost made it half way through the ground level of the building, stopped dead in his tracks after he heard the echo of the whistling and Al soon after.

"Al do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Shhhhhh, wait... It stopped, that's weird I coulda sworn I heard whistling."

"Ohhhh, I get it you're trying to find an excuse to leave 'cause you're actually scared." Believing himself so clever for doing what he thought was figure out his brother, who could hear the cockiness oozing out of his voice, quickly recognized it, and his older brother instinct kicked in again and even Al knew when Edward thought his little brother was in danger, he didn't mess around. He quickly lowered his voice and Al could tell by the way Edward was looking around that he was serious. "Al shut up...! There's someone else in here."

"What do you mean in here? You mean with us! It's the ghosts brother come on we have to go!"

Alphonse grabbed the forearm of Edward's coat and started dragging him out of the building. Edward just jerked his arm back, almost tearing his coat but all the same, he got away from Alphonse.

"No Al, not ghosts, it's something else, I mean an actual human being and I get the feeling their watching us. Let's just keep going - I'm not backing down from this no matter who tries to scare me." He said as he started to get his own cocky tone back. "But keep your guard up - there might be a reason everyone thinks anyone who comes in here dies. Are you sure you wanna stay? 'Cause I can walk you back to the door."

"No, brother I wanna stay with you." He was trying not to give off the quite clear fear that something might happen to his brother, but he wasn't fooling Edward in the slightest. Edward gave his brother the look every little brother knew as 'seriously? You're gonna try that with me?' and let out a sigh of the same expression.

"Alright but remember - be careful, even if someone's just trying to scare us if they find out you don't have a body they might freak out and head to the authorities and if we get rated out we're never gonna be able to finish our mission and I'm not willing to risk that all for some wild goose chase. If you think you might get caught - I don't care if you're with me or not, just get out, alright?" Just as the last words escaped his lips he started wobbling, closing his eyes tightly and when he opened them he shook his head as though to clear his vision.

"Okay brother will do... Hey, um, are you alright?" He slowly walked over to his brother and held out an arm for him to lean against, which he did, although it was more of a stumble. "Yeah, Al, I'm fine." He stayed there for a minute letting out a few quiet groans with his left palm pressed up against his forehead and waited for the dizziness to go away. "Brother, are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine now just got a little dizzy that's all. It uh, it must be the smell, I'm sure this place is riddled with dead animals. You ready?"

"Yeah"

"Alright then, let's go!" He said jumping away from his brother who had been holding him up, held out his right hand which had been curled into a fist and waited for his partners hand to connect with it to complete the fist-pound.

"Right!" He finished his brothers ridiculous sign of unity then they started again on what was probably their smallest journey ever to expose the lie that is - ghosts and decided to split up since, first of all, as they had learned from experience, life was not a horror movie, they were also both extremely accomplished alchemist's especially for their ages, so they could take care of themselves, and lastly they were both fully aware that - even while sometimes Al did believe they did - ghosts do not exist and Edward knew very well, even though he still worried about his brother a little, he'd be fine. But unfortunately Al did get scared after hearing some strange sounds which at first he just thought his mind was playing tricks on him but he did inevitably let his mind get the better of him and he started looking for Edward.

"Brother?" The strange sounds continued with items randomly falling of shelves, shadows moving back and forth which he tried to tell himself was just a rat but then he started hearing the whistling again and getting the feeling like someone was in fact watching him. "Brother is that you? Are you there...? Brother this isn't funny..."

Edward couldn't hear him. After they chose to split up Edward decided to go up to the second story which was just full of more junk; there was more broken down machines that looked like they had recently been moved to cover up something which to be perfectly honest, made his heart beat a little fast and next to the spot where the machine had been there was what looked like a small puddle of blood and a rotting smell accompanied it. His heart began beating in his throat as he walked around the corner to see what was there, only to find at great relief to himself, a dead bird decomposing and being eaten by ants and surrounded by flies. But all the same it was still really gross and he immediately through his hand over his mouth and nose and started walking away from it to keep from passing out, but only if he had waited and looked over at the other end of the wall he would have noticed there was a trash bag with flies all around and five fingers hanging out of it...

Convincing himself that the poor bird was just at the end of its life and not killed by something living up here, he shook it off and continued on his path but didn't get far before his vision started to get blurry and he got light-headed again. With one hand on his forehead, he used the other to look for something to lean against and luckily found a wall, he turned around so his back was pressed against it and with his eyes closed tight trying to make his head stop hurting and after finding it quite difficult to stand, he started sliding down the wall to a much more comfortable sitting position and after sitting there for five minutes, noticed this one was much worse than the first.

He began to dose off a few times and believed that he did in fact pass out for a while, he came to this conclusion easily after noticing the sun had started to go down and since he hadn't been eaten by ghosts or possessed or held prisoner in the factory or had his head cut off as his brother so delicately put it, he figured it a good a time as any to find Al and get out of here. He was quite pleased to stand up and notice his headache was completely gone so he very gleefully and somehow, very slothfully, began looking for Al.

"Alll, Allllllll. Damn it where'd he go? ALLL!" He had also completely forgotten the thought that someone might have been watching him and made no attempt to be quiet, Alphonse, on the other hand, was still looking for Edward, and for a huge suit of armor, was being pretty silent, but that was mostly because of his fears. He made **every **attempt to be as silent as the grave and thankfully after about ten minutes of searching for each other, they were finally both in the same room, but didn't know it yet. "Allll, you here?"

"Brother, is that you?" Seconds after they both spoke they could hear the whistling again, but this time it wasn't coming from ground level, they both unknowingly, but simultaneously looked up to see who was making the sound but saw nothing but ceiling panels, so after staring for a minute and deciding that it was once again their minds playing tricks, they just kept walking.

"Hey Al, is that you?" He lazily muttered with a yawn.

"Brother...? Brother! Wher've you been? I've been looking all over for you!" He yelled in both anger and relief.

"Oh sorry Al, I think I passed out for a while, my head started hurting again."

"Passed out? Brother you know you've only been here for like ten minutes, right?"

"What? Ten minutes? That's impossible, I fell asleep, I remember waking up when the sun was going down!"

"Oh jeez, brother have you looked at a clock since you got up today?"

"... No, why...? What time is it?"

"Just look at your watch."

He pulled out his pocket watch, opened it and looked at the time which was no later than five thirty-nine. "What time did we get here?"

"You woke up at three fifteen, we went to the tavern at four, we left the tavern at about five, and got here at five twenty. So we've been here for closer to twenty minutes I guess."

"Wow... I thought we'd been here much longer... I guess we should stay a little longer just to prove the point..."

"Yeah, I guess. Should we split up again?"

"I don't see why not. I know you don't have a watch but you seem to be a pretty good judge of time so we meet back here in about thirty minutes?"

"Sounds good to me"

So they fist-pounded again and went their separate ways. Not long after they parted ways Alphonse noticed that the floor of the room he was in was covered in what looked like egg cartons and… Something sticky, he bent over to pick one up and noticed a huge transmutation circle under them but before he realized what was going on it was too late.

Edward wondered around the second story again, since he didn't get to see much of it the first time, save for going back in that room since he didn't want to smell or see that poor dead bird again. He walked around for what seemed like forever and noticed a flight of stairs, and started making his way towards them, but not before he started stumbling again, he grabbed on to the rails of the stairs and before he even thought about it his left hand was on his forehead again, he began to fall backwards, but someone had caught him and started pushing him back up.

"Oh, thanks Alphonse." He muttered as he looked up at what he thought was his brother. "I knew i-!" Before he could finish a rag had been thrown over his mouth and he began pulling away from the man but despite his automail, he still wasn't nearly as strong as his assailant. The man wrapped his other arm around Edward's upper arms and chest to minimize the chance that he would try to pull the rag away from his mouth. Edward tried not to inhale but unfortunately it didn't look like his attacker was going to pull away anytime soon and he was either going to pass out from the lack of air or the chemical over his mouth, he desperately wanted it to be from a lack of air but his human instincts weren't going to let that happen anytime soon and it felt like if he inhaled he would just pass out, but if he didn't take a breath soon, he was going to die of suffocation rather than simply fall asleep. So he gave into the temptation, no, the urge to inhale and as he did a quiet whimper escaped his lips, not knowing who this man really was, or where he would wake up, or if he would wake up…

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><p>AN – Eh? I don't know I was kinda happy with how the ending came out but it's one of my shorter chapters. ANYWHOS! Hope you guys liked it & hope to get to write more often & please review :)


	5. Scared

A/N – Hey everybody, so, so, so, sorry this took so long, I realize it's been over a year since my last chapter & would like to both personally apologize for my incompetence & thank you all for being so patient with me & not sending me hate mail & all that, & thank you for all the awesome reviews! You don't know how much they mean to me. So, without further ado I give you, Chapter Five.

I don't own anything, it all belongs to: Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. MBS. Bones. Dentsu. FUNimation Productions, all rights reserved.

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><p>Bleed<p>

Scared

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><p>October 14th, 1911 East City Train to Dublith 1710 hours<p>

Roy sighed. This was single-handedly the longest train ride he had _ever_ been on, or at least it seemed that way. The car was quiet which only made it seem longer but, what was there to say? Would anything anyone said help or just make things worse? They all knew what they were going to do and they had gone over everything they had as far as leads go, so anything said would be an attempt to make what they were going to do easier, but there was no point. It was going to be hell no matter what. And of course it didn't help that everyone who saw the uniforms was immediately consumed with the game of giving them all death glares. On the left hand side of the car in two rows, facing each other was Falmen and Fury and in front of them was Havoc and Breda. Across the aisle on the right hand side was Mustang next to Hughes and sitting in front of them was Hawkeye. Roy's sigh broke the uncomfortable silence, but even if the silence wasn't there, it was still uncomfortable as all hell, and that wasn't the worst part, the tension was still so thick you could cut it with a knife. Havoc was, unfortunately, not all that concerned about the attention they **didn't** want to bring to themselves and threw his head back, and stared making strange, unidentifiable sounds with his tongue and making his check pop with his finger, which earned him questioning stares and irritated looks from the other officers.

"… What? I'm bored." Havoc whined

"I don't care; count the trees or something, just shut up." Breda retorted

"What fun is that? Come on there's gotta be something to do to pass the time, right Colonel?" Havoc enthusiastically suggested with not so much as a glance of acknowledgement from the Colonel. He almost always acted according to the Colonel's mood, so usually right about now he would be as silent as the grave, but next to Hawkeye and Hughes, he knew the Colonel the best. He knew the way the Colonel's mind worked which meant he knew that right about now it was running rampant with thoughts either about what he was going to do to the men who had kidnapped Edward and possibly Alphonse or about how this was entirely his fault and what an incompetent piece of shit he was, undeserving of both his rank and the privilege of the trust of the two boys who's lives he had just ignorantly and unconsciously ruined forever.

Riza looked at the Colonel who, despite the strange sounds, the childish bickering, and the glares he had earned himself just by the stars on his shoulder, had not said anything, nor looked away from the spot on the floor he was so pensively staring at with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Would you two stop it? Here, read the paper, quietly" She insisted, handing Havoc the paper next to her.

"Yippy… How much farther?"

"I don't know man, but is there anything I could bribe you with to shut the hell up?" Breda exasperatedly spat at him. They all knew Havoc was just trying to lighten the mode since they were all so tense but it wasn't working as it was clearly expressed on Colonel Mustang's brooding face. There was another small silence but somehow it seemed less uncomfortable, just… Quiet

"I shouldn't have let them go…"

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><p>Dublith 1918 hours<p>

Blood trickled on his forehead while slowly running down from his raw wrist. His arms bound above his head, his automail arm felt like it was being ripped from its shoulder with the weight on it, and his feet hanging just high enough so only his toes kept him touching the floor. His head pounding and muscles aching from the drugs coursing through his veins, anything incandescent quickly became his worst enemy along with any noises louder than that of a church mouse. He imagined the cold, wet, darkness that was his cell of seclusion and soon probably, torture, would irritate him more but since the light that was turned off while someone walked out of the room hurt his head so badly, he didn't mind it much, although the searing pain from his wrist was possibly the worst he had ever felt, he thought compared to what might come if his captor knew he was conscious that the pain in his wrist wasn't so bad… For now at least

The hung-over feeling didn't pass for what seemed like hours, and as he slipped in and out of consciousness he couldn't help but to unknowingly let out a few moans of pain. Against his best efforts his captor heard a few of these and decided it was time for him to wake up. As Edward saw the silhouette moving toward him he began to tiredly pull on his restraints but he was too weak for it to do any good. The man bent over next to Edward as he tried not to free himself from the chains but just to remain out of reach from the man closing in, the man grabbed his braid and pulled him in, mere centimeters away from his face, in the hand that he wasn't using to hold his hair he held up a syringe and Edward began to jerk away, harder than before; with more purpose. "My, my, you are a feisty one aren't you? You've gathered quite a bit of strength haven't you? That will make this much more fun." He was elated at the next sound that came from his young prisoner. As he pushed the syringe into his neck, Edward let out an almost silent cry; but despite how soft it was, it was still quite satisfactory to his tormentor. Ten minutes later Edward was fully conscious and while he wished he wasn't: fully alert. He began piecing things together in his mind about everything that had happened in the past three or four days, or at least, what he thought that's how long it had been. But at this moment it didn't really matter whether or not it had been three or four days, or even a week. Or at least, he didn't think it mattered… Did it?

"Where's Al?"

"He speaks! I'm so glad you've finally decided to join me."

"Where's my brother!?"

"Jeez, calm down are you always this moody or is it just the drugs talking?" Edward stayed silent; glaring "Alright already, your brother's fine, he's here; but he's fine."

"Where"

"I told you… Here"

"I don't believe you." This time Abdeil stayed quiet.

Edward let out a deeply throated growl that sounded like that of a lion preparing to tear the heart out of its prey; clearly not amused with his "game." "Alright so he's not here, I left him at the factory. He doesn't need air right? Cause he might not have access to any." He answered with a smirk, holding a large hunting knife; the handle in his right hand and the blade pricking his pointer finger on his left. Edward gasped. "I made it myself." He snarled, basking in his victory over his young, helpless prey and noticed the look on Edward's face after he revealed his knowledge of Alphonse's secret. "Oh don't worry, I won't tell." He assured him as he pretended to zip and lock his lips. "I'm quite familiar with alchemy myself, I can tell, and your dirty little secrets safe with me."

Edward remained quiet both in, not knowing what to say and not wanting to say anything. His brother was safe, which put his mind at ease in too many ways to count. He didn't care what happened now. Not that he didn't care about his own life. But all he ever really knew was that he could die peacefully as long as he knew Al was safe and sound. And besides, he knew the guards would have noticed they were gone by now and called the Lieutenant Colonel, they would search the town over, find the tavern, which would mean finding a lead to where Al is and even if he is in some "hidden room" he knew Roy wouldn't stop until he at least found some trace of him or Al, which means inevitably finding Al, but he knew the tracks would probably end there, they would never find him and it would turn into another cold case. But he also knew Mustang would help Alphonse where ever he could to find the philosopher stone just like he had so many times before for Edward and he would help Al in any way possible in getting his body back and that sat pretty well with him.

"Well then, where should we start? I hardly know you at all which is… Uncommon for how long we've been together, I know it hasn't been too long but normally I'm much father into the conversation by now, so… What do you say we get started?"

"Alright" He said conjuring up his cocky attitude to prove Abdeil hadn't even come close to beating him. "What should we talk about first?"

"Well, I would like to know, what you know! I'm sure you've pieced sooo much of all this together in that lovable little mind of yours!" He answered while pushing down on Edward's head as an opened palmed noogie.

"Ugh…" He grunted in recoil. "For starters I know 'Abdeil' isn't your real name." "Abdeil" pulled up a stool in front of him and sat quietly, curious to know what Edward's mind was capable of.

"Really, how do you figure?"

"Well, whoever you really are, your name is on a birth certificate or in a file somewhere and after all the towns you've visited and all the people you've killed, you would already know just how stupid it was to use your real name. Or you are using your real name you just faked your own death so no one would think anything of it, they would just see some poor guy who offed himself and now some sicko is using a dead man's name. Or you could just be using a different name in every town. So, which is it? Now that I've given it a little more thought I'm curious myself." All things considered, "Abdeil" was pretty impressed. The fact that he's a twelve-year-old chained up in a basement, God only knows where, and he has now been drugged twice, and his interrogator has a knife sitting only a foot away, his mind was pretty clear.

Since all he wanted to know was how focused Edward could be under circumstances such as these and some other clues as to how his mind worked he completely ignored Edward's question and answered with: "Good"

"O-kay, well since you're not going to answer me, what should we talk about next?" He responded in his sarcastic way.

"What makes you tick" His smile disappeared, he looked more serious than Edward even thought he could and somehow he looked more psychotic than before, which worried Ed the most considering how creepy he appeared before, it didn't matter what Edward might have said, he knew what he was going to say and nothing Edward said would have surprised him in the slightest. And words couldn't describe the fear rising in Edward's stomach no matter how hard he tried to push it back down, he began to shake and he couldn't stop himself. The fear was too obvious for his own good. "Abdeil" stood and began circling his prey still balancing the knife the same way but spinning it back and forth on his finger to the point of making himself bleed and he broke his own skin, he smiled again. Edward's heart began racing and pounding in his throat, almost to the point of making him lose the cool he was so determined to keep. Attempting to show that no matter what the man did to him, he would never be broken, although his comment did make him recoil a little and as the man circled him he began to get defensive. Every time he felt his breath brush behind his ear he would jerk forward or pull down on the chains that held his wrists and let out a grunt that was too loud to mistaken for anything but dread. With every circle Edward became more and more scared of what this man intended to do to him and how slowly he might do it.

* * *

><p>Dublith Train Station 2100 hours<p>

Without waiting for the train to come to a complete stop Roy jumped off the train and was swiftly on his way to the Crutis residence with his subordinates following ready to stand by as he tore a new one in each of the Elric brother's "guards" unless he started trying to kill them but they were hoping that wasn't very likely... They arrived at the house and started racing to the door but stopped after they heard soul crushing roaring that, even though it was being muffled by the door, was still unrealistically loud and the profanities were a little too discernible for the Colonel's liking. But after a few seconds of listening it became painfully obvious that whoever was yelling, they were doing it for the same reasons he wanted to be, so they continued to the door. But even the first few knocks on the door weren't heard over the yelling so he began pounding on the door much in the same way Izumi had when Al and the others were listing in on her conversation with Edward; only Roy wasn't concerned about knocking it down. In fact that would make it easier to get in since the door was locked. The yelling stopped but it turned into infuriated mumbling as loud stomping came over to the door on the other side and slammed open as the woman barked "Now is not the best-!?" She stopped for only a second after seeing who it was. **"Just what the hell kind of soldiers do you idiots train!?" **Roy, shocked by her greeting tried to get a word in, but with no such luck.

"I-Ah!" She grabbed him by the front of his coat and pulled him inside while signaling his subordinates to follow with her head. The first sight after stepping foot inside was all the soldiers lined up against a wall standing at attention, trying all too desperately not to sweat, but with about as much luck as Roy had with getting a word in. Completely ignoring Izumi who was still holding on to his coat he maliciously glared at the men lined up then it felt as though there was some sort of barrier between Roy, Izumi and the normal world as he turned his attention to her, they glared looks at each other that could outright kill an ordinary man as their breathing quickly got heavier and you could tell by the looks in their eyes exactly what they were thinking. Even though it took more to make Roy blow up, when it did happen he was much like Izumi. In a second with one swift movement and without blinking he slapped Izumi's hand off his coat and walked away. And Lieutenant Hawkeye walked up to Izumi and they left the room to have an actual conversation about the Elric brothers, while Roy, completely ignoring the entire world around him, as if nothing else mattered, or even that it never did, or ever would again, he marched over to the soldiers who immediately saluted him but were disregarded with his unforgiving contempt. He walked up to the highest ranking office there who was only a Second Lieutenant and stared down at him for only a few seconds then looked down the line of soldiers he felt as though he could kill for being such utter failures, let out an audibly strained sigh and started for the door.

"Follow me… NOW!" he barked at them as he began walking out without so much as looking at any man's face, while Lieutenant Hawkeye and Izumi had walked back into the main room, Izumi grabbed Roy's arm only this time she seemed to have less malevolent intent, it felt to him as though she was looking more for reassurance than an argument. Roy couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye so he just stared at the floor, ashamed at his inability to take care of the two she had spent the last couple of years pouring her heart and soul into "I will bring them back." He said sternly but in his more often used and casual tone at the same time, in a way that relaxed her beyond her own comprehension. He sighed and lifted the arm she wasn't holding to scratch the back of his head "And I think I can settle with being second to lecture them too." He was startled when he felt her hand begin to shake, his eyes widened and he instinctively and without hesitation threw his hand over hers and looked her in the eyes. "Don't worry, I promise." With that, and Lieutenant Hawkeye's salute to Izumi, they left. Sig came up behind Izumi and wrapped his arms around he shoulders, he didn't say anything, just held her as she trembled.

"I hope you do…"

"I want you morons to scour every inch of this City until you find them, anyone who's seen them in the past two days, or even anyone who thinks they've seen a midget in a red coat and a suit of armor. Go!"

"Falmen, Breda, take half the men and search the North East side of the City. Havoc, Fury, you take the other half and search the South West side. Hughes, I want you to head to the police station gather all available men they have, and any men who are unavailable, make them available and see what you can find out. Tell them they have a serial killer hiding in their town somewhere. And Lieutenant Hawkeye, you're with me."

With a salute from everyone, accept of course from Hughes, they all went their separate ways. Mustang and Hawkeye went to the only place they could agree the boys would go first: the nearest diner. It turned out to be a complete and total failure since they almost had to threaten people to get them to even look at them, and Hawkeye basically ended up being the mediator between Roy and the civilians he was trying to interrogate. Almost two hours later Havoc came looking for Mustang to inform him of a dead body they found in a storage freezer in a pub close to the outskirts of town. Roy then immediately sent Hawkeye to the police station to radio Breda and Falmen to meet them there and to tell Hughes to round up as many officers as he could to head to the pub with them. They made it to the pub only to see a few men standing outside holding bottles of alcohol since the building they would rather be sitting in was surrounded by police tape. Roy made Havoc lead himself, Hawkeye, Hughes, and one of the men who claimed to be a regular inside to the freezer. He identified the body as Bryan, the bar tender and owner of the pub. Mustang and Hughes then interrogated him and the rest of the men outside the bar while Roy's men search the rest of the place to look for any evidence. One of Roy's men found the syringe with the remanence of a drug and a box of matches. Roy heart dropped to his stomach while maintaining his emotionlessness once he was told, and saw it not even wanting to entertain the thought of what that was used for. After finishing interrogating the men they headed to the abandoned factory that was once a lumber mill now sealed off by caution tape and rumors…

They entered the crumbling building with two to three men per lantern on all floors and with twenty men outside, and ten more on the roof, all looking for blood, signs of a struggle, alchemy, or that anyone had even been there recently. It had only been a little over an hour since they arrived but had found nothing but evidence that someone had been there, the lack of success made it feel like more than twelve hours to Roy, after making it back to the ground floor, he just out of the corner of his eye noticed foot prints that could only belong to a suit of armor. He wordlessly began to follow them, spiking the curiosity of his subordinates. He followed them over to a wall that was obviously not supposed to be there, but with little signs of alchemy. He pressed his ear up against the wall and heard groaning and soft cursing. His eyes widened and he slammed down to the ground and pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket and drew a transmutation circle. He formed a portion of the wall into an opening as tall and wide as a doorway. As the light and small amount of smoke died down he saw Alphonse trying desperately to carve a transmutation circle on the ground with no avail. "Alphonse!" Roy rushed over to him and untied him a little too hopeful that he would be able to help them find his brother too. "Is brother with you?" Al asked praying that they had maybe found him first. Roy just shook his head "No, I'm afraid not." He said remorsefully. Roy was anxious to know what Alphonse could tell him about what happened but much to his dismay, all Al could tell him was things he already knew. The only thing Al told them that they didn't know before was that the man who took Edward met them by claiming to be the brother of Bryan and called himself "Abdeil" however Roy had him identified as a Christoph Bäcker by his intelligence agent who was their next and only lead. Roy knew it had to come back to him, after all, he did promise that he would kill him. And Roy was a man of his word.

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><p>Dublith 0032 hours<p>

"AHHHH!" Christoph twisted and slowly pulled the knife from Edward's side, turned and began cleaning it off as Edward hung there coughing up blood.

"I think we're done for today." He turned to face Edward who was panting with small dribbles of blood still hanging from his lips, trying to catch his breath and keep his fleeting consciousness. "It was nice talking to you. I really am glad we met."

"What, you're done already?" Edward scowled, trying to keep from throwing up more blood. His panting faded and breathing becoming softer.

"You really want to continue?" Christoph asked almost out of shock.

"I just expected more from the guy everyone was telling was by far the sickest mind in all of Amestris." He retorted with a shrug.

Christoh raised his eyebrow, "Well that's quite flattering but I'm afraid I'm nothing compared to State Alchemists."

Edward jolted back in disbelief. "What do you mean, 'Alchemists be thou for the people.' That's our motto. We don't murder innocent people for the fun of it!"

"Don't you? A State Alchemist by the name of Zolf J. Kimblee may prove you wrong." Edward racked his brain trying to think of who that was. The name was familiar enough but he couldn't place a face. "Or what about that friend of yours? Colonel Mustang? He has quite the reputation and I'd say he lives up to it very nicely." Edward lowered his head a little hoping to block out Christoph's voice. "You do know why he's called 'The Hero of Ishval' don't you?"

Edward raised his head and barked. "It's because he saved his men, he protected his comrades!"

"So that's the story they tell people." He chuckled. "I suppose it's a good way to get all those gullible fools of Amestris on the side of Military Rule."

"Why, what did he do?" He asked in horror, not truly wanting to know the answer. The mere thought of the honest answer made his voice crack in attempting to ask the question.

"It's simple really his body count was the highest." He explained "Which I suppose could be_ loosely_ interpreted to 'he saved his comrades' because well, there was no one left to attack them. He ended the Ishvalan Rebellion! Isn't he wonderful!?" He ran over to Edward and grabbed his face to make Edward face him. "He's killed more children than I could ever dream of! Isn't it awe inspiring how this country dotes over war criminals?" His eyes widened as he rapped his hands around Edward's neck and began pulling him off the ground. Edward gasped and began stretching his legs as far as he could; aimlessly hoping he could make his feet touch the floor to put less strain on his neck.

"You…'re…lying…" he fought with what was left of his strength to squeeze out.

"Am I?" He tightened his grip around the boy's neck just to watch his prey squirm like a defenseless mouse about to be devoured by a snake. "You of all people should have realized what kind of man he is by now. You know what he's done; do you really think he gives a damn about any of it? He only sees that war and any other he's been in as a another step in the ladder to his success.. You know that's all you are too, a step in his ladder; why else would go so far out of his way to pursue the military enrollment of an eleven-year-old child? You might be a talented State Alchemist and "The People's Hero" but who do you think gets the credit for discovering you? He would just as easily and gladly walk over your slaughtered corps if it meant another star on his shoulder or a stripe in his uniform." He released his hold in Edward and let him drop to the floor, Edward began coughing and spitting up franticly as Chirstoph stood and glared down at his victim for a moment, then calmly walked back over to his table and poured chloroform on a rag and continued cleaning his knife. As he was still turned with his back facing Edward he heard the faint mutter of unintelligible speech with fits of coughing between words.

"You're wrong… You don't know what you're talking about… The Lieutenant Colonel would never do something like that, not by choice…" He choked out.

"Really, I must know, what is this blind faith you have in the man you've only known for a few months?"

"Just that… Faith, I don't need to have known him for years to know that he's not the kind of person you make him out to be. I saw the look on his face when he read the paper saying that another kid had gone missing."

"Ohhhh, what did it look like? Was he devastated? It's called acting, child. You still think he could honestly be bothered to give a damn about children like you? Trust me it was nothing more than a casualty of war to him. You know, however many children I kill goes on his record and in his report. He has to explain why he couldn't catch me sooner. The least of his concerns is talking to the parents of murdered children."

"You're a monster."

"Oh no, you work for the monster. Equivalent exchange, you may not want to be but you're giving me something I want and so in return it's only fair that I give you something. Besides, alchemists seek truth, do they not? What more could I possibly give you than to reveal a lie that you have been living with for almost a year?"

"I didn't ask for this!" Edward cried and hid his head as best he could.

"I know" He approached Edward again, but this time instead of holding some dire instrument to harm him, he only had a rag which Edward didn't think much of; if anything he was expecting another needle so at this point he thought he actually might be coming over to clean off some of the blood. "But then again, you didn't ask for your mother to die either, did you? You didn't ask for your attempt at human transmutation to fail or for your brother to lose his body, or you to lose your leg, or your arm. Did you?"

"How did you know about th-"

"I suppose you could say I'm like the gate of truth. You may not want what I have to offer, or like what I take from you to get it, but you still asked for it." Christoph looked Edward right in the eye as he knelt down in front of him and gently placed his left hand of the on the top half back of his neck, using his index and middle finger to grab a small bit of Edward's hair in order to hold his head steady which made Edward start pulling away, despite his initial shock, but it was too late for that. With his right hand he still gently placed the rag over Edward's mouth, as Edward started jerking his head away Christoph then forced the rag farther on to Edward. "Sh, shh, shhhh. There, there. It'll all be fine.. Just relax..." There was a brief moment of panic on Edward's face as he continued pulling and grunting, but inevitably gave in again. His muscles went limp and his head collapsed as he fell unconscious. "To be continued." Christoph smirked as he stroked Edward's unconscious face and walked out of the room.

* * *

><p>Dublith 0147 hours<p>

The majority of the Dublith police department still scoured the city for Edward or any trace of him in the pub, the abandoned factory, and even in the sewers while Mustang and his men decided to hold up in a small hotel for the night; Havoc, Breda, Fury, Falmen, and the rest of Edward's detail were all sleeping while Lieutenant Hawkeye kept watch outside Roy's door while he and Major Hughes discussed some paperwork and the possible whereabouts of the man using the allies of 'Adam Douglas' who had been supplying the Colonel with information concerning Christoph Bäcker; after already having been doing this for close to two hours Roy exasperatedly exclaimed that it would take a lot longer than he initially thought to sift through the files to determine how much of it was actually true and how much of it 'Adam Douglas' had just used to keep Roy on the hook although despite the worry of how much time they both were fairly confident it might take they did try to stay as positive as possible due to the confused and infuriated young alchemist sitting in the corner; Alphonse Elric. Riza had snuck in the room for a small coffee break before her next shift began when she was noticed by Roy as she attempted to silently lean her rifle on the chair she was about to sit in. "Lieutenant, care to join in on our endeavors to make our way through the heaping pile of my incompetence and failures? There's plenty to go around." He was so livid with himself his comment came across with a chuckle of disbelief and a hint of insanity.

"Roy this isn't your fault." Hughes tried to calm him down, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't patronize me Maes. Explain to me how this isn't my fault." He barked at Hughes, throwing his hand off his shoulder and standing up so swiftly his chair fell backwards. "I can't even think of a scenario where this isn't my fault!" During his glaring contest and while his attention was kept toward Maes, Riza slapped the back of his head as hard as she possible could. Maes couldn't help but to choke on a laugh trying to keep it in as he heard the volume and velocity of the slap that almost rendered his good friend nearly to tears. "What the hell was that for!?" Roy Yelped at Riza with tears welling up in his eyes; one hand formed into a fist in front of his chest and the other holding his head as he feared it might fall off.

"Honestly sir, if you think it's your fault then apologize, but don't wallow in regret and blame. It's pathetic." Roy knew he was a lot of things, but whenever possible he strayed away from the word 'pathetic'… He didn't think he was that bad, but hearing it come from her he had absolutely no defense… When she was finished his shoulders went up and he lowered his head to the floor trying to hide the look on his face that could be described as nothing but 'pathetic'. He only thought about what she had said; he scratched the back of his head and puts his hands in his pockets. He then walked over to Alphonse and knelt down in front of him.

"Listen, Alphonse I-"

"She really tore you a new one, huh?"

"Haha, yeah she did." He lightly laughed. "But, Alphonse… I'm sorry, I will get your brother back but right now-"

"I'm not leaving. I'm going with you guys! He's my brother and he would do the same! And you know you'd let him!"

"Ugh… Yes you are! I know you want to help and you're right; I would let your brother if the roles were reversed but you don't understand. He chose this. Your brother is a State Alchemist and he has to do stuff like this but I can't be responsible for you too right now. I'm not going to be able to explain why I let an eleven-year-old tag along on a mission like this! … You are right though, he would do the same, but you have to understand that's just the way older siblings think. You're Ed's to protect and if your teacher didn't kill me for letting you go than he would."

"How would you know? I thought you were an only child."

"No, I have an older brother and a little sister, but I'll explain that later. I promise. I'm going to take you to your teachers first thing in the morning, okay?"

"But-"

"Alphonse, she needs you right now, that's how you can help."

"Okay"

* * *

><p>AN: Wow… I was I've been working really hard on the second half of this chapter for the last few days now trying to think of how I could possibly make up for the fact that I made you guys wait for OVER A FREAKING YEAR & not surprisingly I decided that there was no way in hell I was going to make it worth the wait, so I just wrote my little heart out… seriously, I'm sweating right now… (tmi) but anywhosits! I do sincerely apologize for the wait. I swear I do love you all! & thank you ALL for being so patient with me! pT^Tq

P.S. Please review and yell at me if you like or tell me how it sucked so bad you're wiping you're a** with that chapter right now or you know, virtual hugs are cool too. I give you free reign, and with that I say "So long, & thanks for all the fish. Until the next chapter!"


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